Smart City - Criticism

Criticism

The main arguments against the superficial use of this concept in the policy arena are:

  • A bias in strategic interest may lead to ignoring alternative avenues of promising urban development.
  • The focus of the concept of smart city may lead to an underestimation of the possible negative effects of the development of the new technological and networked infrastructures needed for a city to be smart.

The idea of neo-liberal urban spaces has been criticised for the potential risks associated with putting an excessive weight on economic values as the sole driver of urban development. Among these possible development patterns, policy makers would better consider those that depend not only on a business-led model.

As a globalized business model is based on capital mobility, following a business-oriented model may result in a losing long term strategy: "The 'spatial fix' inevitably means that mobile capital can often 'write its own deals' to come to town, only to move on when it receives a better deal elsewhere. This is no less true for the smart city than it was for the industrial, manufacturing city".

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